WARNING: This article may contain spoilers. You have been warned and, therefore, not allowed to banish the writer from the kingdom if you choose to read on without seeing the movie first.
Like any good D&D game, it takes multiple missions to lead the characters to the end of their quest. But unlike the tabletop version, you don’t need to return to your friend’s basement over several days but can enjoy a cushy movie theater chair for a couple of hours with an overpriced soda. If Dungeons & Dragons proves to be D(igestible) & D(elightful) for the masses, we might see the couple-hour sittings renewed for more missions. From what we’ve seen, they rolled some $151 million dice, and it’s paying off. Has it paid off yet? No, it’s the first weekend, calm down. But there are signs that this D&D movie’s armor is made of more than just metal. It’s made of bright, flashy franchise material.
The flashiest threading in the fabric is the expertly cast ensemble of stars, none of whom were plucked from obscurity. Audience favorite Hugh Grant appears as his classic-Grant bumbling and charming, now haughty villain era, playing the unknowing puppet of red sorceress Daisy Head (Shadow & Bone). The youths: Sophia Lillis (It series), Regé-Jean Page (Bridgerton), and Justice Smith (Jurassic World) are all gifts of presence to the merry band of misfits. Youngest of all is Chloe Coleman, who you will recognize now that she’s now played the child of A-List dads: Chris Pine, Adam Driver, Owen Wilson, and Sam Worthington, all in the last year.
The two leader leads, Chris Pine and Michelle Rodriguez, will likely be the most familiar franchise faces. Pine has helped lead the latest Star Trek movies, Wonder Woman, and never forget Princess Diaries 2. Rodriguez has stacked resume of big-budget franchises between seven Fast and Furious films (eight if you include the Vin Diesel-directed short prequel), a couple of Resident Evils, and just one Avatar, but it still counts. Reportedly she could have done more but turned down the opportunity, not wanting her character to be brought back to life again.
“I came back in ‘Resident Evil,’ I wasn’t supposed to,” she told Cameron. “I came back in ‘Machete,’ I wasn’t supposed to. I came back with ‘Letty,’ I wasn’t supposed to. We can’t do a fourth, that would be overkill!” … But, can’t she? Maybe she contractually wasn’t able to say “for a fifth time,” seeing as how, despite her resurrection fatigue, she was once again brought back from the dead in Honor Among Thieves.
They needed to bring her back in Honor Among Thieves because who besides Holga the barbarian would deliver such raging action? The stunts are a huge part of the magic in this movie, and they weren’t done with nearly as much CGI sorcery as we expected. You can feel a difference in the raw momentum of the choreography, expertly crafted by Brad Martin. Martin has worked on many hits from Charlie’s Angels and Zoolander to the Matrix movies, and XXX is a repeat stunt double for George Clooney and a Taurus Award winner for his work on Live Free, Die Hard.
For the D&D movie, he led a team that ensured each character, staying true to talents from the game, would have their unique fighting prowess. For Doric’s character, who’s a shapeshifter, they incorporated more animalistic motions. For Regé-Jean Page, they worked for six weeks, mainly covering fencing work that he’d need for his sword-fighting scene with Jason Wong. Props to both the teacher and the student; they hardly used Page’s stunt double when it came to shooting. For Chris Pine… well, there was little less involvement for his character. “I don’t do any stunts in this film. Nothing. I have no action. All I do is run…” Pine told Variety. “All these poor schmucks had to do all this martial arts training on the weekends, and I was taking walks on the beach. I was reading, caught up on my Netflix. I had a great time.”
Multiple members of the cast and crew have mentioned that older Jackie Chan movies gave loads of inspiration to how they went about choreographing the stunts. They wanted them to be practical and peppered with beats of comedy. Please take one of the scenes from the trailer with Michelle Rodriguez, who is undoubtedly no stranger to action movies that highlight her talents as a complete badass. She single-handedly fights her and Pine’s way to freedom with a brick and brute strength. In this feat, she takes the badassery to a new level of toughness (she gained 15 pounds of muscle for the role) and comedy. Every brick and potato thrown packs a punch of laughs.
We’ve all sat through painful movies (not naming names) where one-liners left us with more cringing than laughing. Not in Dungeons & Dragons. Best experienced with an audience around you; it’s got just as many laughing bellies as The Whale had watery eyes because people were having real fun. It’s like a trip to Disneyland without the lines. Even the punchlines that were in the trailer got laughs. Unless everyone in the theater had somehow missed the advertisement, the joke got second-round approval.
Rag-tag crews have historically led to marvelous comedy moments. That dynamic of characters has become so familiar- unique personalities, backgrounds, and points of view, coming together for an outrageous common goal, have sparked chuckles from Oceans 11 to Lord of the Rings. Whether they’re breaking into Benedict’s or Sauron’s vault, diverse ensembles play sassy quips and cheeky zingers in word or fight form. Honor Among Thieves hosts those calculated elements while boosting the romping playfulness to the maximum.
In this way, it’s also terrifically self-aware, and there was room for its interpretation in the marketplace. We’ve already got highly successful, heavier high-fantasy programs like House of Dragons and The Rings of Power. But movie-wise, Honor Among Thieves could fill a gap in the high-fantasy realm. The last high-fantasy who tried to take that leap (outside of LotR) was Warcraft, and… that leap did not make the landing. You’ve got to have the complete franchise package to get a kick-off that’ll make it to a finish line that’s a decade and billions of dollars in returns away. A sense of humor when it comes to high fantasy and the mass market is the ticket. You honor and love the source material with all your might, then infuse it with the humorous elements that’ll keep the quest a well-oil, wild, and rollicking ride.
Before the oh-so-important source material is mentioned more, a quick round of bonus franchise points should be awarded. Points for costuming that’s so sharp it’ll replace ‘regencycore’ with ‘d&dcore.’ (Undoubtedly René-Jean Page looks very much at home in both options). More points for the appropriately sappy moral message about family, which is key to any Marvel-adjacent blockbuster. And many more points for camerawork that seamlessly match the script’s frivolity and momentum. Frivolity, not frivolous! Honor Among Thieves does not lack value- It’s anchored right to the RPG heart.
According to Rodriguez. “-Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley, who directed this movie, put hundreds of hours into the gameplay.” A smart move because, as many original property fans will know, if you don’t start with a fundamental understanding of the material, your ship has sunk before it’s left the shore. D&D’s got a giant built-in fan base lasso that can be thrown around anyone born post-1974 when the game was first released. Generations of nerds have been born since then. That’s a lot of game time.
With so much story material to mine from, it’s almost surprising that the filmmakers didn’t make Dungeons & Dragons: The TV Series. But now that we’re living in this most recent Golden Age of Television where shows are getting the axe left and right, choosing a motion picture was maybe the better option. Once proven successful, it could have infinite sequels. It is in Dungeon Master Paramount’s control. And if players gonna play, as they have been for nearly 50 years, we could have at least 50 years of sequels from this. Or maybe just 20 years of sequels and then whatever 2050’s TV version will be.
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